Book description
When the Japanese entered the war in 1941, some 20,000 British
civilians in the European colonies in Asia were rounded up and marched
off to concentration camps where they were to remain for three long
years. Over 3,000 of them were children. This is the first time their
extraordinary experiences of suffering, endurance and bravery have been
collected together. STOLEN CHILDHOOD offers a window to a forgotten
world of European colonialism, and explores what happened when that
world was brutally shattered overnight, plunging these children into a
savage and chaotic world. It was as if in an instant their childhood had
been stolen from them. Living on what had effectively become the
frontline of a war, in daily contact with an enemy whose values were
totally alien, they witnessed acts of shocking violence. They had to
cope with the knowledge that beloved family members had been beaten, and
saw at close quarters the evil that human beings can wreak on each other
when the social rulebook is torn up. But their stories also prove
inspirational, such as the nine-year-old girl who stood up to the
Japanese guards, or the children who taught themselves Latin by etching
out their verbs in the dust. Harrowing, but ultimately uplifting,
internment from a child's perspective is a complex - and untold - story.
A story that features horror, suffering and self-sacrifice, but it also
celebrates the resilience, adaptability and fundamental
irrespressibility of the human spirit. Nicola Tyrer is a freelance
journalist who writes for the DAILY MAIL and DAILY TELEGRAPH. Her
previous books include SISTERS IN ARMS and THEY FOUGHT IN THE FIELDS, a
history of the Land Girls.
